The Art of... Dave the Diver


The undersea adventures of sushi restaurant manager Dave the Diver is surely a contender for game of the year. We reel in the game’s director, Jaeho Hwang, to find out how it was assembled.


DAVE THE DIVER HAS THE LOOK (AND HUMOUR) OF A CLASSIC 90S LUCASARTS POINT-AND- CLICK ADVENTURE. DID ANY OF THOSE TITLES INFLUENCE THE LOOK AND FEEL OF THE GAME?


Jaeho Hwang, the director of Dave The Diver


“We initially created the fish farm and farms in the game like Stardew Valley, but it didn’t feel quite right”


I personally feel that humour has faded from games lately as they’ve become more flashy and complex. We wanted to present relationships between characters and capture humorous moments narratively in Dave The Diver, like how the old The Secret of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango games presented theirs. If somebody felt the same way about Dave the Diver, I can proudly say we’ve made it.


WHAT OTHER GAMES OR REFERENCES INFORMED THE VISUAL DESIGN OF DAVE THE DIVER? There are several pixel art styles and they influenced us in different ways, and I think the early SNES look (16-bit) is detailed and fulfils enough of what people like about pixel art. So, we focused on 2D characters to keep the classic charm, but found that if the backgrounds were also in 2D, it limited the sense of beauty in the ocean areas – so we wanted to try to mix 2D with 3D. Titles like Fez and A Short Hike blended a 2D pixel and 3D art style well and definitely inspired us.


50 | MCV/DEVELOP October/November 2023


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